A life-changing coverage of a concert by the beach. Not.

There is something about The National’s coverage of the F1 that is just a tad odd—we can’t really put our finger on it but consider the following tidbit:

“Surrounded by scores of fans in Beatles and Wings paraphernalia, Saif bin Ahmed was a bit puzzled.

“Who is this Paul something?” asked the Emirati, 45.

Told McCartney is one of the biggest selling artists in the industry, Mr bin Ahmed was unimpressed.”

This extract from an article, called “McCartney had only Said to convince,” you must admit is a rather strange way to review of a music concert. It almost seems like the journo didn’t want to cover the event and thought the “confused Emirati angle” was the best way to go (as one of our FB friends very well put it!). It is also not the first time The National chose to go down this road. Here’s another anecdote from a different story about the free concerts at the Corniche:

“On the other side of the city at the Beats on the Beach concert, Saeed Mohammed was having a life-changing experience.

The lorry driver from north Pakistan arrived at the free beach concert on the Corniche an hour early. He had only come because of the cool weather. The music was a surprise.

By the end of the night, Mr Mohammed’s musical interested had expanded from “patan only” love songs from north Pakistan to R&B, hip-hop and dance.

He looked quizzical when the UAE hip-hop group The Recipe first took the microphone to ask, “Abu Dhabi how you doin’?” But he was all smiles when they broke into beat and rapped, “It’s about to go crazy like a mental institution.”

When they sang “cold blood is running in my veins”, Mr Mohammed gave his friends a thumbs up.

“How many days is this music thing?” he asked. “Four? OK! Very much OK.”

Just exactly why this journo thought to classify the above as a ‘life changing’ experiencing is beyond Kipp. So what is the motivation behind this story. Is this a, “If you come down to the music concerts in Abu Dhabi you can meet interesting people like these” kind of story, or is it a “If you come down to the music concerts in Abu Dhabi you might meet people who are pretty clueless about the music being performed” kind of warning? We don’t know what quite to make of these articles, do you?